The news that I received was the good news that I had been waiting for..... the news I had been waiting for for over 7 months.

The doctor has given me the green light. The x-rays look good and he told me I could start doing whatever I felt like doing. As you are aware, I have started back to running, but I have only been back to the gym to do any weight lifting just one time since the surgery to remove the pin. He told me, that if it was comfortable I could even get back to doing some pushups.

I saw this over at tresamigasrunning.blogspot.com and just had to post it. There is all too many things in here that remind me of training for and running my half marathon. I have to say..... WAY too many things in here. Really funny.

I missed the date. I know, not many people other than me care, but the date I missed was January 10th, 2009. What does that date signify you say? That date is the one year anniversary of this and my other blog blog.2big.org.

I have almost exclusively run by myself. The only times that I ran with someone else was when I was running a race or when one of my kids went out with me for a mile or two.

Today was different, but a welcome different. I was going to run yesterday but when I got up and it was only 17 degrees and I had limited time I gave in to the pressure and skipped the run. I was gone most of the day and upon returning it was too late to head out for a run.

Now, back to the reason why today was different. I decided to head out for a run, and when I told my son about this he asked if he could go. I said sure, knowing that it would not be a run, but more of a run/walk. I still would not pass up this opportunity for anything.

Brady, my 7 year old son, and I headed out the door. My intention was to run the 1.2 mile circle with him, drop him back off at home, and then hit the road for a few more miles before calling it quits. As we started to walk on the approach to the house my cell phone rang. It just so happened that it was a friend that I have been asking to go running with for some time. He had seen my Facebook status change that said I needed to go for a run and he called to see if I wanted to go running. He caught me at the perfect time.

I dropped off my son and then ran over to meet him as he was walking up the really steep hill towards the main road. We went for a run just over 2 miles. It was a run/walk but was mostly running. He is used to the treadmill, and hasn't run in a couple months so we are both just starting to get back into running. He is more of a speed runner so we both gave each other some kind of a workout.

It was a lot of fun to run with someone else just for a fun run. Hopefully we can get out a bit more in the future. He said he isn't a distance runner, but I am hoping one of these days I can at least get him out to do a 5k race.... and maybe even a 10k race.... now that one is probably dreaming. :)

It has now been a few weeks since I have been back seriously running. If you look back at my post on December 31st, you will see how I was kinda discouraged with how far I had to go. I still have a long way to go, but I am already starting to see some progress as far as my lungs go.

My first couple runs my lungs were burning quite a bit. I was discouraged quite a bit following these runs because I used to be able to hit the road for 6+ miles at a faster pace and not really even give thought to my lungs. I then recall that it has been 7 months since that has happened and a lot of sitting around waiting for my collar bone to heal.

I have been very pleased over the past few days on how far I have already come. Yes, I still do have a long way to go, but in the baby steps I am starting to get some welcome traction. If I am able to run what I want to tomorrow I will top 10 miles for the week for the first time since my injury over 7 months ago.

I can feel the cheers as I progress, thanks for reading and the welcome motivation!

Today was the first time I have had to charge my MyTach GPS Sport Trainer. While running this morning I was just finishing up my last tenth of a mile when I looked down and the watch was off. When I run in the early morning I turn the backlight on so I can look down at any time and see how I am doing. I am sure this drains the battery faster, but is a great feature when I run in the dark.

I am still very impressed with the battery life. I have had it for just over 4 weeks and have not had to charge it till today. The other thing I am impressed with is that it saved my run before going dead. Sure it didn't get the last tenth of a mile, but it recorded everything up until the point it went dead. The true test will be when I head out for my first marathon :)

I think it is about time to start the new year off with a post. I hadn't realized that I hadn't updated you all since the first of the year. I honestly thought that I had.

This week I finished off with actually getting out and running three times. There was even some resemblance of a schedule to my runs. It wasn't really all that structured, but it was somewhat like it used to be back at the height of my training last year. I put a two miler in on Monday morning 5:00 am, and again on Thursday morning at 5:00 am. I would have gotten out on Wednesday morning but it was raining and I am not quite back to that level yet..... although I will be soon. I then wrapped up the week today with a 3.2 miler. This is the longest I have run since my injury 7 months ago.

Today's 3.2 mile run started with the first mile run with my daughter, Payton. We ran just over a one mile circle and I dropped her back off at home as I continued one more circle and then a short out and back distance to finish off my run. It was a really good run, and I am happy for the new distance. Each week I hope to progress a little bit more and push that distance a little bit more.

I am really enjoying my MyTach GPS Sport Trainer. It really helps me worry less about where I will run and where the mile markers are etc. I can just get out and go and it takes care of how fast I am running and how far. It lets me enjoy the run more and plan less. I will still have an overall plan, but the mapping out the courses will not be as important to me.